EVA HESSE: Studio Works BARCELONA FUNDACIÓ ANTONI TÀPIES
Sin titular (S-77), 1967. Courtesy: Collection Tony and Gail Ganz, Los Angeles. Photo: Ed Glenndinning.
Strange Subtlety JUAN CARLOS REGO DE LA TORRE
A group of “studio works” by Eva Hesse (1936-1970) are presented almost as if they were relics, in an installation which expands through the entire central space of the renovated Fundació Tàpies, whose immensity contrasts with the minuscule presence of most of the pieces on show. These works, which supposedly are characterised by being “unfinished pieces”, have, however, been produced in a 126 · ARTECONTEXTO · REVIEWS
highly meticulous way, boasting extremely subtle and well-polished finishes, as can be seen, for example, in the papier maché objects. Paradoxically, the show offers glimpses, in my view, of keys for a better interpretation of the work of Eva Hesse. In the spatial immensity, these small pieces seem to swim in an ocean; perhaps this is not the most appropriate space for the intimacy they require, yet their value increases through their contact with the enormity of the place. It has been seventeen years since the last Eva Hesse exhibition in Spain, and this is a rare chance to begin to understand the web which forms her creative universe. The show constitutes an initiative which defines the beginning of the direction taken by the Fundació Tàpies. In order to carry out this unique show, six institutions from Europe and America have come together to present a group of works produced between 1964 and 1970, and which belong to the “studio works” category, to use the term coined by Briony Fer, one of the curators of the display. The exhibition does not include any series, although there do exist some affinities and similarities which favour the interaction between some of the works; because of this they have been arranged without following a pre-established criterion, depending on the analogies which can be extracted from the views and impressions of Briony Fer herself, guided by the manuscripts written by Sol LeWitt, who was one of Hesse’s closest friends, with regard to the value of the works, in an attempt to define them as finished or unfinished. One of the most interesting aspects offered by the show through the knowledge of these “studios” is the dilemma regarding the qualities an artwork must display in the process of its final definition. The comments examine Hesse’s playful intentions, the precision of the moulds and the scale replicas of future pieces. These pieces, which were not seen until after the death of the artist, and most of which have been stored by the Berkeley Art Museum, constitute Hesse’s creative foundation. Her renovation of sculpture was radical, and she succeeded in integrating hitherto unthinkable materials into the field, offering new methodologies for artistic production in a new reflection of the categories of beauty and ugliness. The latter was associated by Karl Rosenkranz to the idea of the absence of form, or deformation, an idea present in the work of Hesse herself, and shared by other subsequent artists, such as Beuys and Bourgeois. However, some of these pieces are reminiscent of natural figures and even pure geometric forms, in contrast with visceral, and even scatological, organic sinuosities. In some cases, the larger works have been freed of any protection. In other cases, a glass urn protects and lends them the added status of fragile and vulnerable objects, which, in this context, could be described as miniatures. A hall-full of treasures, made up of papier maché, rubber, resin, latex, cotton, rope… which succeeds in moving us.